I, Master
by Derek Metaltron
Summary: The Master is trapped in a prison of his own making. With escape not attainable, he must spend the time telling his lifestory in his own words. Classic and New Series, inspired by 'I Davros'. Chapter 5 Up - Autons and Aggivations.
1. Prologue

Hm?

Is… is that you, Doctor? Is it?

Ah, no. Someone else. How_ interesting_. How droll. _Go away_.

_No?_

You have me at something of a disadvantage. You see, under normal circumstances, I would probably try and kill you, or at least control you. I have this Screwdriver you see… _Laser_, not Sonic, far better than the pathetic Doctor could ever come up with… and I could use to… to, hm…

Heh, funny. I'm not sure I quite remember. This process I used to get here, to this… _place_, with the rocks and things, very nice by the way.... It's designed to house my spiritual form. I've kind of done it before, though last time I didn't have to sit here for hours on end. But I guess it's started to take away my memories, like that rude alien had to me when she flew it my way. The Ring. Perhaps this was her final revenge, for killing her or something.

Would that pathetic girl just…! Ah, look at me, losing my temper. I'm the Master, I'm a patient sort.

What do you mean, _what kind of a name is the Master_? It's _mine_. The one I choose, all those years ago, with the Drums beating. Or perhaps the Drums choose it for me. The Drums… I can't hear them right now, isn't that good? I hope it's good. I've heard them for so many years in the back of my head.

You want me to _talk about myself_? Oh god no. This _is_ the Doctor, isn't it? You figured out that the Ring I wore could bring me here and… oh, maybe not. You could of course just be something that the Doctor flung in my general direction to… Nah, what am I saying? You're just a big stupid wisp of black stuff, living in this, _festering_, _miserable place_ with _stinking pits_ and unruly, utter useless…

Wait! Don't go! Don't _leave me here alone_! Please?

Ah, that's better.

Let us see. Memories are fragile. I need to remember, recall what has gone before. All those defeats, those set backs. Yes, the fun times and the bad times. The Doctor, in all his irritating shapes and forms. The old one, the clown one, the stylish one, the one with the scarf, the celery one, the annoying _loud _one, the mysterious one, the long curls one, the one with the black jacket and most recently, that one with the brown jacket. Or was it blue? Oh wait, I think he switches. In any case, that's not bad. Its shows that as long as the festering girl does do her job, I'll be out of here with most of my memories intact… _I hope_.

So, the Master's first and probably only account of his life. My wonderful, vainglorious life. And I'm telling it to a black cloud. Oh, how the Doctor would _love_ that.

So, to begin.

Well, to start at the beginning, one must think… of Gallifrey. Of home.


	2. Gallifrey

So… _Gallifrey_.

That yellow, rust-like world of mine. Hm, funny. Just thinking about it makes me sad. Which is odd considering how _boring_ the place was. I really did end up hating the place. To me as a child, Gallifrey seemed a prison, a place that as an oh so-boring Time Lord I would have to live upon for the rest of my life. Most of the class didn't think like me. They were happy to wallow their lives there forever.

How predictable. How insignificant.

But there was one. _Well_, actually there were a few of them, but of that lot, of the Monk and the Rani and the rest of the gang who would eventually descend into misbehaviour in their older years, there was the Doctor.

Yes,_ that_ Doctor. I know what I said about him before and I stand by it. Now he's an irritating, pesky thorn in my side. But to be truthful, I'd likely be nothing without him. And the universe wouldn't be as fun without someone to goad and amuse me like the Doctor. How he tries so hard to beat me… and then he does.

I never like that bit. Just once, just once I'd want to… Ah, but I get ahead of myself. Back then, the Doctor had promise, just like me. Both of us adventurous and bold. The teachers never liked us. Always asking too many questions. Always reading about Omega and Rasilon too much. The Doctor and the Master, friends. Who have thought it possible?

Well those days are _long forgotten._ We weren't even called the Doctor and Master back then. We had… _other_ names. But that's not important. So don't bother asking.

Anyway, I'm sure you don't want to hear about all this boring childhood. No, there's only one story from there which truly matters. The Birth of _Me,_ and the death of that young school boy I might once have been.

The day I stared into the Vortex, when I looked through the schism. When I chose to be obeyed rather than obey, and when I met _her._

_Death._

Shall I begin?


	3. Drums and Death

People who know me well _think_ they know how I was made. Martha, dear Martha Jones. The loyal Captain Jack. What an interesting pet he made... Oh, and the rest of the lovely Jones clan.

The truth is that they know _nothing_.

The Drums? Yes, I _suppose_ that they started the process off. I was young, naive and ready to see what life would throw at me next. The Time Lord elders had this boring tradition, the need to stare into this vast schism in Time which ran through the centre of Gallifrey like some great glowing line of energy directly into the heart of the Vortex. Eventually some genius had reckoned it wise to create a portal to make everything nice and safe. How dull. Of course they did use the remaining energies to seal the Death Zone from the rest of Gallifrey, so sticks and stones.

_What's the Death Zone?_ Oh my inpatient cloud creature, do try and let me tell this story at my own pace, hm? That's eons away... and the story about my birth is more than entertaining, trust me. So, the gateway.

_Beautiful, perhaps_? Oh I don't know, I never ended up paying much attention to the sights anyway. It was the noise which drew me in. Time Lords varied how they perceived the schism. Some, like the Doctor, ran away from its power. But others, like me... _oh yes_, I recognised it's potential straight away.

And then came the drumming. First soft, then harder, a definite beat, again and again. **BO BO, BO BO BO BOO, BOBOBO, BOO BO**... Well, you get the idea.

It filled me. Consumed me. And ever since then I've heard it, in the back of my head. Until recently of course but I _am_ dead, so I'll take that by halves. Sometimes it was quiet, other times it was all I could hear.

But as I said, the story of my birth doesn't begin with a mere sight-seeing trip. No, I had a better opening than that.

* * *

I matured slightly. The Doctor said that I seemed... different after my inauguration. Truth is told, so was he. I reckon the experience made him the irritating tick he is now. A pity. We could have worked so well together. His genius and mine, fused to create destruction and control over all time and space. A brilliant partnership.

Ah well, a Master can dream.

So... there we were, a mere thirty years old and with such dreams, such ambitions, but still clinging to that fragile boring rock of ours. But we had other problems.

There was a boy. Older, more of a brute than a would-be Time Lord. Why he frightened me and the Doctor I don't know. But he was one of our class members and he was a bully. Time and time again he'd take great pleasure in torturing us. Nothing horrible, he just liked to just what bullies do, be a pain and watch us cry and squirm.

One day he found us by a river. And he grabbed...

Um. Was it me or him? I can't recall. Odd. Like something never lets me recall this tale fully.

Ah yes, the Doctor. He grabbed the Doctor.

So he grabbed that little Time Lord and threw his head in the water, enjoying his cries for mercy as the Time Lord squealed and begged. Normally when one of us were being tortured by this insect, the other would hide or stand stock still in fear.

But not today. Today I heard those drums, louder than I had ever heard them before. For the first time I took control of my destiny, ran towards the bully, picking up a large rock on the way and I...

The blood flowed from the wound as the bully collapsed. How ironic that my first act as the Master would be to protect the enemy of my future. But as I helped him out of the water even he knew that the boy's death must never be known, or the pair of us would never fulfil our dreams of leaving Gallifrey far behind. So we burnt the body, leaving no trace.

But by taking a life, by choosing my path and listening to the Drums... I had embraced the first steps of my future. And as I tried to sleep in my room that night, _she_ came to me, in my dreams.

* * *

The Doctor, for a result of his irritable heroics and worthless endeavours to thwart me and my plans, ended up becoming _noble_, eventually stealing an aged crate of a TARDIS with his naive granddaughter and exploring the Galaxy. For what? To be an explorer, to save galaxies? Bah! That's all_ I_ wanted at first, but she and the Drums taught me that I could have so much more. That thug was just the first step.

_What?_

Oh, you wanted to know who _she_ was. Well... as time passed, the Doctor became referred to by many names. One of these was Time's Champion, a whimsical title he used most when he was in his seventh body, a little man with a hat, umbrella and those quaint question marks on his lapels. But me... I became _Death's Champion_.

Yes, Death. As in dying the last thing you ever see. I saw her on the way here, she was most disappointed, stroking that dull cat of hers and ordering me back to reality. You're not one of her puppets are you? Well if you are let her though that I'm the Master. _I serve no one_.

In any case, Death appears to have a form. And on the night of the bully's death she came to me. She said she'd chosen me to her champion. And from that day I knew my legacy.

* * *

It took time. I had to mature fully. To plan. To become _better_ than the Doctor. Several times I was said to squander my regenerations as the decades passed. The Doctor as I said eventually left, and I was free to prepare to do the same. Some of the others who had the same vision but not the same clarity and purpose tried to defeat him, like that Monk character. Ha! I say I was amused to learn of his eventual fate. And then the fellow who ended up calling himself the War Chief. Both of them had this ill conceived belief in playing with Earth's History, but never in the way that I would. I enjoy the game as much as any decent renegade, but they used things like Hastings and the First World War as if they were play toys. How predictable. No wonder the Doctor defeated them.

No, I needed to see what the Doctor could do. I knew that I needed some power, a form of the universe I could control. And then, nicely enough, the Doctor did all the hard work for me.

First he had the idiocy in the wake of his battle with the War Chief in requesting help from the Time Lords, and so got his ship clamped, companions booted and face distorted. Seeing that the Doctor was a clown within his second body it was hardly surprising. I watched him from hiding, and in doing so discovered a perfect ally that he battled upon Earth.

I readied myself. My TARDIS was better, slicker than his own and besides, he was stranded upon that blighted planet he called his second home. I made myself the perfect weapon. And finally, I was ready.

I set the controls for Earth, Twentieth Century. The drums beat hard in my mind, and I pressed the levers. This would be a perfect start to a perfect defeat to the Doctor.

Beh, _how wrong I would be._


	4. Nestene and Nuisances

_(Occ: Apologies for the long delay in this latest installment, I'm hoping to update on a more regular basis from now on. This Chapter concerns events as seen in the Classic Who Story 'Terror of the Autons' so does contain spoilers if you haven't seen this story. Please enjoy! :) )_

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It is perhaps important at this stage in the tale to admit that at times, I did not choose to face the Doctor _alone._ I was still young, perhaps more than a little handsome and brooding, with that infamous black goatee... I think that when I last regenerated I decided that it so longer suited my style and to be honest, it always seemed to let the Doctor know who I was... and of course carried my beautiful crafted weapon, the good old Tissue Compression Eliminator. It was always a favourite tool of mine, but I lost the thing because of those accursed Daleks on Skaro. (_Later Cloud Creature, later..._) Still, the Laser Screwdriver is a fitting counterpart.

In any case, through many of those early encounters I perhaps foolishly chose to ally myself with a number of primitive though often cunning set of alien creatures who desired conquest of the Doctor's dear adopted planet. The fool at this stage was as I said stuck; trapped in that velvet coated vintage form of his. Oh how I hated that one. Immensely. Though the Doctor has changed many times it was certainly this body who I still loathe the most.

Even so, I thought to myself that I had chosen a fitting ally to begin with – the Nestene, a bunch of nitwit creatures created near to the dawn of time and thanks to evolution, obsessed with plastic and all its varied forms. The Doctor had, it seemed, already defeated these creatures and their plastic dummy slaves known as the Autons once before, and so the Nestene Consciousness was naturally enraged at the poor fellow and demanding revenge.

Heh. _Enter stage left; the Master._ So simple. So easy an initial scheme.

The plan was straight forward enough – this incarnation of me appealed to the inhabitants of their festering home world the opportunity to get back at the Doctor and so doing conquer Earth for good. Some inactive agents were still lying around from the previous invasion, and of course the odd energy unit needed to power their servants of plastic too. I merely offered to get the ball rolling. The Nestene, in all their tentacle glooping glory, agreed.

So with that side-trip proving successful I moved my plans to Twentieth Century Earth. I admit on hindsight that perhaps some elements of this scheme were not fleshed out – I did not care what happened to the Nestene and Earth, only the Doctor and the chance to outwit him seemed to appeal to me. It was only when I arrived in some tattered circus that I realised that I was, at least at this stage, alone. I needed an ally, some brainless fool of a human to serve me til his usefulness was complete. And so I found dear Rossini, some pathetic circus owner who I realised would have to do under the circumstances. My first human puppet.

Events moved swiftly and quickly over the following week, and I utilised my own TARDIS to the letter to provide me with the means of extending my plan for when Time might be of the essence. Soon I had the grasp of a decent scheme and so it commenced within stages.

Stage One: I and my new slave stole a captured Energy Unit. It was depowered and broken, but nothing my Time Lord mind, even at this youthful stage could not fix.

Stage Two: Next came the need to broadcast the signal of the Nestene. This was the point I knew that the Doctor would begin to suspect some form of invasion, so I act quickly and with style. I was pleased to get the first opportunity to use my sweet Compression Eliminator on a hapless human once I entered the primitive telescope facility, though I realise that it might have put the Doctor on my scent, as the fool would have recognised Time Lord mechanics by now. From there it was a simple matter to send the signal into space and awake the Earth-Bound Autons.

Events were proceeding well, even without the appearance of the Doctor and his dear, so dear UNIT allies. I had monitored them all already, of course – _know thine enemy_ and so forth- but didn't at first take into account the unknown factor of one companion – some esteemed scientist named Liz something being replaced by a scatter-brained irritant named Josephine Grant - a woman who would prove to be a thorn in my side across several then-future plans of mine – and a new UNIT recruit by the name of Captain Mike Yates. It seemed that these two had appeared by the Doctor's side in a period I was otherwise engaged with final preparations, and so these two had not factored into this first plan of mine.

Perhaps stupidly, I thought little of it. They were mere humans. No threat to me. Ah... have I ever learnt from that? Perhaps not. Humans in later years, seemingly so important to the meddlesome Doctor, proved more and more significant in every new plan I devised.

_So_, returning to this one...

Well, the first big slip-up I made was not factoring in those stupid, irritating _Time Lords!_ I thought that they would simply stand by. Not so – they quite simply told the Doctor I was here and expected him to take care of business. How godly of them. Fools. When I later learnt from the Doctor of their warnings I resolved to hurt them badly, and in years to come, so I would. So I would.

But the damage was done. Still, I seemed at that stage to be in a superior position. With the Nestene back on Earth I was able to use my mind control techniques and back up to place myself in a powerful position with a Plastics Factory, using this human facility to build more Auton units for an army which would destroy Earth and humble the Doctor. It was at this point that Miss Grant popped in for a visit. I had not factored her into my plans as yet, but enjoyed the opportunity for an easy means of killing off the Doctor. So quite simply I hypnotised her and got the dear girl to send the Doctor a nice package.

A bomb. I like bombs, bombs are good.

Of course it didn't work – the fool saw through the facade of the retrieved Energy Unit instantly and the bomb didn't get him. Annoying, but I never seriously experted this hasty plan to work – merely to rob the girl of his memories of meeting me and test the Doctor's resolve, as well as jestingly send him a message. An explosive one, heh heh heh!

Heh... Still, things were getting out of control for me. I couldn't afford to control everyone in the corporation, and one of the under-hands was getting tetchy – a pathetic human named McDermott. He did prove useful however, as he served a vital testing role in the usage of killer plastic. Previously the Nestene had been limited to walking dummies – with my help, I planned to make any form of plastic their servant, and a suitable armchair so delightfully becomes a means of execution. How warmly I smiled as the fool twitched and struggled to prevent being suffocated. I recall more recently learning of the Nestene using some varied variations of this in their latest invasion attempt on Earth as I rose to... ah, again I digress. Later perhaps.

But at this moment, I was in complete control. The Doctor knew I was here, but I was still holding all the cards on the table. What was my first attempt at defeating the Doctor seemed to be my only needed attempt – it would succeed, and I would become supreme across Earth.

_So I thought..._

* * *


	5. Autons and Agrivations

So, with that meddling human gone, you'd think that only the Doctor would be the irritation, correct? Wrong. I had planned to have the Circus Man I've swayed until my power to hold the Doctor at his oh-so delightful circus, but then the Companion stepped in; Miss Josephine Grant, again. Ugh. I should have used that example there and then to get rid of all of the Doctor's latch-ons and friends, but I didn't. Even a back up of a hypnotised minion to blow them up with another explosive failed.

_..._

It was right at this point that I _truly_ begin to hate the Doctor. Why?

Because I failed to take into account the fact that he'd sneak into my _own_ TARDIS and _**STEAL MY BLASTED DEMATERIALISATION CIRCUIT!**_

_..._

Ugh. Stupid, irritating Doctor! Why? Why hadn't I considered that possibility?

* * *

In any case, I was too busy to realise this blunder just yet, my plans with the Nestene apparently in place. Though the Doctor was still alive, I posed to ensure his downfall soon enough, and as expected two attacks by their Auton dummies failed to kill him or UNIT – if I could do it, however could they? Pah!

I had, nevertheless, put myself in a powerful position – the father of the owner of the plastics factory I controlled dead by Auton after I irritatingly found him too strong-willed to control – a human, too strong? Ugh! But with him gone, the Nestene were able to hand out the plastic daffodils of their creation out via my genius and begin to terminate key members of the British Population, people who might seek to stop me and my allies.

As expected and with a bloody trail to follow thank to the Nestene, the Doctor learnt about my alter-ego in 'Colonel Masters', and so of cause I had to create my own diversion – a simple disguise and entry to UNIT would apparently see to that. Meanwhile the foolish Time Lord and Miss Grant located the Troll which had killed the formerly mentioned fool and destroyed it, though not before finding evidence in a plastic daffodil to link the Nestene to my position. Things were getting out of my control.

Two schemes unfortunately failed in quick succession. First came my arranged plan of using a telephone line to kill the Doctor by strangling him with the line – a pity this would not be possible in this era, ah well. But he survived thanks to another of his allies in the Brigadier. Next, Jo Grant accidentally became my next target when a radio signal activated by the dear Doctor sent a sprayed plastic mask over his nose and mouth. A perfect means of killing, with no evidence there after! However, the Doctor saved her and now knew the means to our victory.

The next few sets of events I admit were partly my fault, call it a sense of my worse half, my sympathy for the Doctor in a moment of weakness coming through. I had arranged for the brainwashed Plastic Factory Owner to drive a bus of Autons carrying the needed troops for an initial attack before the main forces arrived. Meanwhile I, having learnt of the Doctor's stealing of my TARDIS circuits, demanded that he return them to me, threatening Jo Grant's life, a technique I learnt often would win the Doctor over.

In this case they did not work, though I did not emerge empty-handed, as the stupid girl blurted out a useful fact, that UNIT planned to bomb the bus and destroy my allies, leading me to order Miss Grant and the Doctor to accompany me so as to prevent the stupid Brigadier using his pathetic 'trump card', so to speak.

Irritatingly it was ill at this point for Farrell to attempt to betray me, forcing me to use the remaining Autons to attack UNIT whilst I retreated to the facility to send the signal. However, this was the said moment that the Doctor appealed to my lesser sides, of our former friendship. The Doctor pointed out that the Nestene would certainly strive to destroy me as well as him when they arrived, and I was forced to concede that possibility. With such a problem in mind, we resolved to work together, one last time (or so I thought at the time) to prevent the Nestene entry. Of course I knew the Doctor would turn his attentions to me when he had the chance, so I quietly slipped away when the moment presented itself, setting a last plan to disguise a brainwashed Farrell as my scrape-goat.

* * *

I had to collect my wits within my TARDIS, assessing my position. So long as the Doctor held those stolen circuits, I was almost as trapped as him; confined to linear time on one planet, able to move my ship in space, albeit limitedly, but not time. My next plan to defeat him would be far more confined, but no less impressive. I was playing for keeps now, and I _would_ defeat him.

...

And so the whole miserable year of my life with the Doctor began. Bah.


End file.
